


Blood is Thicker

by AmityRavenclawElf



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: 100 Year War (Avatar TV), Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Bloodbending (Avatar), Dark Huma, Harry is a bloodbender, Harry is a waterbender, Mal doesn't know how to handle her feelings for Uma, Maleficent is the Firelord, Multi, Obsessive Mal, Past Child Abuse, Protective Gil (Disney: Descendants), Protective Harry Hook, Protective Uma (Disney), Uma is a bloodbender, Uma is a waterbender, possessive Mal, prisoners of war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmityRavenclawElf/pseuds/AmityRavenclawElf
Summary: Uma was raised to be a weapon of the Fire Nation. She was raised with the lie that she was "rescued" from the Water Tribe (and they never even told herwhichWater Tribe she was born to). She spent years convincing them that she believed the lies, that she didn't resent them for the burns on her hands, that her earliest memories were of the palace grounds and not of ice and snow.But on her first mission, she deserts.
Relationships: Evie/Uma (Disney), Gil/Harry Hook/Uma, Harry Hook/Uma
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	Blood is Thicker

_“Do you know why you were called here?”_

_Uma stood with her back straight and her head bowed and her (trembling) hands in position for a respectful greeting, but her jaw was still clenched with defiant fury. “No, Headmistress.”_

_“You don’t?”_

_It was a ludicrous claim, as she’d been pulled here directly from the scene of the crime, as it were. And she was dripping wet._

_“No, Headmistress.”_

_“Uma.”_

_(She ground her teeth at the way the headmistress spoke her name, as though it was incomplete. Unlike most of the Royal Academy’s attendees, she had no family name- just her own.)_

_“The Fire Nation rescued you. Firelord Maleficent saw to it that you would be educated at the finest institution in the world, no less than she provided her own daughter, her own heir!” The woman cracked her pointing stick down against the edge of her desk, for emphasis, as though the severity of her tone and the looming threat of the punishment they both knew was coming weren’t enough. “And you repay her with rule-breaking? You repay her with irreverence toward Princess Mal?”_

_“You expect me not to defend myself?” Uma demanded. Mal had started it. Mal always started it. But Uma was not allowed to waterbend outside of training. Not even to put out fires._

_The headmistress didn’t dignify her with a response; she merely took a deep breath and fired a blast of flames past Uma, at the familiar horizontal metal bar installed across the room at waist level, like an exposed pipe._

_Uma tried not to flinch. She was almost thirteen; not a child any longer. She stared at the red-hot metal with ostensible disinterest._

_“Hands,” the headmistress ordered._

_Uma unwound the cloth from around her palms and fingers, struggling not to let them shake._ This time, _she told herself,_ I’m not going to cry. This time, Mal won’t have the satisfaction of hearing me scream. __

_“Get on with it, then!”_

_Obediently, she wrapped her hands around the bar._

_She screamed and cried._

Uma opened her eyes.

The pale light of morning was beginning to corrupt the edges of night, and she could feel the power of the moon leaving her- the symbiotic link between herself and the lapping waves below thinning so that it was just noticeable if she sought after it. The swirling pool of energy in her stomach slowing, turning languid and…tired.

She was tired.

But with the sun’s dawning light to the east illuminating the city to the north, she could no more fall asleep _now_ than she had been able to sleep through the night.

The Northern Water Tribe.

The kingdom in the ice.

She tightened her grip on the cold metal of the warship’s railing (cold enough that she could feel it through the bandages), and closed her eyes again, too overwhelmed by too many feelings. Ice was one of her earliest memories. Ice everywhere, and snow. She had convinced everyone that she had no memories from when she was that young. It was almost true. Memories were precious, her tools of defiance. The only things worth meditating on. So, she went back to remembering things.

_“Back again so soon?”_

_“Good afternoon, Headmistress. How distinguished you look today.”_

_The headmistress smiled, amused and actually fond-looking, as though she thought that she and Uma had any positive interactions between them. Just like Mal, always acting like years of abuse and hatred made them friends somehow. “With your graduation so fast approaching, I had worried we wouldn’t have an opportunity to meet again. How fortunate that the princess had other plans.”_

So you admit that Mal is and always has been the instigator, _Uma thought but didn’t say; she had learned, by now, that she didn’t always benefit from stating her observations out loud. It made them suspicious when she noticed their hypocrisy. She hadn't done herself any favors, being outspoken when she was young._

 _“She said it was different, this time,” the woman carried on. “She said that you didn’t waterbend, that this time you bent_ her _. That you made her body stop attacking.” Curiosity gleamed in her amber eyes. “Am I correct in guessing that you’ve learned how to deliver strikes to opponents that are too light to feel? Perhaps from Miss Grimhilde?”_

_Uma wanted to laugh at the guess, but she was too relieved. If she could get people to think that it was just some specialized fighting style, that she had just landed physical strikes too lightly to feel and too quickly to see,_ not _that she could bend the water inside their bodies...then maybe she was in the clear. “Not from Evie,” she said, because no one who knew even a bit more about her social life than the lofty headmistress would fall for the idea that Evie had taught her anything. Maybe when they were kids, back when Evie was still failing Mal’s little loyalty tests, still running to help Uma instead of just laughing at her misfortune alongside her princess. But Evie had been conditioned into the perfect lackey now. Uma ignored the pang of hurt that always came when she remembered how Evie had once been her only ally. “I taught myself.” That much was true. Everything worth learning, she had taught herself, including the new ability that had allowed her to stymy Mal's attack._

_“Impressive.” Then, without further ado, the headmistress heated the bar. “Alright. Hands.”_

_She was taller now; she had to bend over more. But she wasn’t stupid enough to rest her weight on the bar; she made sure that her feet were rooted before she gripped the metal. Tears sprang immediately to her eyes, but she managed not to scream; instead, she gritted her teeth and made a sound like a steaming kettle._

_“The firelord has been informed of your most recent infraction,” the headmistress told her, conversationally. “She has ordered that you be excused from your lessons for the remainder of the year. You may let go, now.”_

_Uma frowned as she removed her hands from the bar. The firelord? Unease churned within her._

_“You will have an audience with her tomorrow, and then preparations will begin for your first assignment.”_

_The smell of burning was still filling her nose. The firelord demanding an audience with her. Why now?_

_“Assignment?” she repeated warily._

“Shrimpy’s awake.”

The comment, and the revelation that she was no longer alone up here, forced her to open her eyes.

“Shocker,” Evie replied.

Uma didn’t move until she heard Evie and Mal begin sparring, at which point she relaxed. Mal was too committed to outmatching Evie to bother her.

Still, it was best to stay on her guard. She got one last eyeful of the ever-nearing ice kingdom before she turned her back on it, the better to track her comrades' movement. She watched Mal advance on Evie with her usual ruthlessness, and she watched Evie dance around the attacks with her usual grace and her intelligent gaze and the smile of amusement that was as close as Evie came to standing up for herself.

Evie was a non-bender, but she had a power of her own. She was quick, balanced, flexible. She never misstepped, which was good, because Mal was not merciful about mistakes, even during practice fights.

Uma's eyes strayed to a lone sheet of ice floating nearby. More and more ice in the water; that was one way to measure their progress toward...toward...

She managed not to turn back around and stare again.

Their approach was far from secret; Uma had heard whispers, earlier this morning, about small Northern Water Tribe vessels sailing up to their fleet, to _this_ ship, under cover of night. About some of the rebels climbing aboard. Fighting. Losing.

"Hey, Uma, watch this!" Mal called, and let loose the widest, hottest blast of fire yet. Evie spun out of the way just in time, but even so the very ends of her hair were singed, and she had to quickly pat them to keep the tiny flames from spreading.

"I yield, I yield," Evie exclaimed as she made sure her head didn't catch fire.

"Yielding," Mal scoffed, though she did leave her fighting stance. Turning to Uma, she asked, "Can you believe her?"

Uma made eye contact with Evie, whose gaze quickly flitted away in discomfort. It shamed her that Uma did not laugh when she was hurt.

Not that she helped, either.

"Shrimpy's from one of the Tribes, and she still has more of a firebender's spirit than you, E. She never yields. Do you?"

This was Mal's equivalent of joking around, but still there was danger in the expectant look she wore. "Depends on what you call yielding," Uma finally responded.

Mal let out a mild cackle and joined her at the railing. She was dressed in a lighter armor than most of the soldiers on this ship (her underlings), but not quite as light as what Evie and Uma wore; her bending did not require as much free movement, and she was too precious to leave unprotected. Her hair (purple, like the odd purple flames she would bend) was secured back with the royal ornamental hairpiece. "Look like home to you, Shrimpy?" she digressed, eyeing what was visible of the Northern Water Tribe with a predatory gleam in her eye that unsettled Uma more than a little.

"No. Pretty sure my home had a much redder decor."

Mal made an approving noise, afforded the kingdom of ice one last lingering look, and then turned to face Uma and said, "Guess we'll just have to fix up the place, then. Get some Fire Nation insignia on it; make it really feel like home." Then she winked.

With skill born from years of practice, Uma kept her breathing even and her face impassive despite how Mal's words accelerated her already anxiously pounding heartbeat.

"Our first mission," Evie said, skittering up to the railing on Mal's other side. "And it's such a big one! All the other Royal Academy alumni start out so much lower."

"Mother knows better than to put me under somebody," Mal said. She seemed to be the only person in the Fire Nation who had never learned respect for anything, and Uma was shocked that Firelord Maleficent, notoriously ruthless as she was at demanding loyalty, had enough of a soft spot for her daughter to allow it. As much as she didn't like Mal, she couldn't help feeling that the princess was dancing on some very thin ice. And she never could tell if it was a brave act or if Mal genuinely didn't know that she might be one slip-up away from the firelord's wrath. "I'm just glad I got all my requested soldiers."

Namely, Evie, Uma, and the boys. Of course, she did not know that Uma had been assigned this mission before Mal had requested her, before Mal had even graduated to be assigned the mission herself. The Fire Nation's pet waterbender, to take on the Northern Water Tribe. How amusing.

"Where are they, anyway?" Mal's smug and contented look soured.

"Probably still asleep," Evie said, offhandedly but with clear haste. "Or, in Jay's case, seducing everyone from the brig to the smoke stack."

Mal smiled, amused and placated. Uma supposed it made sense that Evie knew Mal better than she did, but nevertheless she was perplexed as to how it was _better_ , in Mal's mind, if Jay and Carlos were being lazy or frivolous than if they were just hanging out together without them. The boys had often been invited to play and train with them at the palace, as kids, but they, of course, hadn't attended the Royal Fire Nation Academy for Girls, so they were closer to each other than they were to Mal or Evie or certainly Uma. (Jay and Uma did have their share of jokes and banter between them, but Carlos and Uma in particular made sure to never seem fond of each other, to never talk alone or even stand close, because Carlos was a rescue from the Earth Kingdom like Uma was a rescue from the Water Tribe, and it would not do for them to seem at all intrigued by the connection. It would not do for them to even seem aware of it.)

But maybe it wasn't allowed, for the boys to care about anyone more than they cared about Mal. Maybe Mal would try to drive them apart, like she had driven Evie and Uma apart, if she suspected that their bonds to each other were a threat to their bonds to her. Uma imagined Mal making Jay celebrate her victories over Carlos, making him laugh when Carlos got burned, and it made her insides boil.

She turned away, stared out at the white ice wall around the Northern Water Tribe, the visible towers of what must have been the palace, now shining brightly with reflected sunlight, so much so that it hurt her eyes. There, the people were like her. Except they didn't know Mal, or the Fire Nation's cruelty- no burns on their hands for fighting back against bullies. They had never been infiltrated. And if those who had raised Uma had their way, that would change today. The only Water Tribe that still stood strong would fall to its knees, under Mal's smug little grin.

She thought, again, about the attempted sneak attack that had been thwarted last night.

It was not a tactic they would try if they expected an easy fight. Subtlety came from fear. The Fire Nation was never subtle, hence the fleet of warships. Everything they did was in broad daylight. Everything they did was blatant, bombastic.

It had always been her plan to run away as soon as she was far enough from their reach, to use the icy battlefield to her advantage and finally escape, but suddenly, the idea of fleeing and leaving the battle to resolve itself felt disgusting. The Northern Water Tribe would not fall, if she could stop it.

She inhaled the icy air, crisp enough to give one a nosebleed, and came to a realization.

If the ships made it to the wall, blood would be shed.

She murmured something to Mal about the tides and excused herself to go speak with the captain.

If this ship in particular made it anywhere near the wall, if it just came close enough that Mal could get to land, then someone in that kingdom would surely die.

She wove through the ship's metal inner corridors with a completely blank expression, befitting someone going to talk to the captain about the tides. Just Mal's least expressive lackey, that girl they rescued from the Water Tribe, who always salutes and says the pledge and gets high marks on her Fire Nation history exams. No one worth suspecting of treachery.

If the ship sank entirely, then no one aboard would survive. Evie, Carlos, Jay. (Mal.) All the faceless soldiers who, as far as she knew, planned to desert as well. Surely she wasn't the only one with doubts.

She made it to the room where the captain and his crew worked. A well-oiled machine, executing commands flawlessly. They had to, or else they would face Mal's wrath. But they had chosen this, hadn't they?

West would take them too close to the Colonies, which would not be easy to escape from if she survived this; it would have to be east. 

Uma quickly got her bearings, identifying the features of the ship controls (from her many readings on the subject) and the placing of everyone in the room. By the time heads were turning toward her with the familiar conflicted expressions of mingled disdain, for her being a Water Tribe peasant, and grudging respect, for her being a well-regarded warrior in the Fire Princess's entourage, she had already opened the water pouches at her hips and filled the room with fog.

Startled shouts.

Clambering footsteps as the crew ran at her.

Uma spun out of the way of arms that tried to clumsily encircle her. She didn't have as light a step as Evie, and she had learned to weaponize that; she swept her feet with each movement, so that every other stride disrupted an opponent's footing. She unsheathed a dagger, ducked under another malicious pair of arms, slashed at a hulking figure just deeply enough that he reeled back, and at last felt her way to the steering mechanism.

A loud noise filled the ship, vibrating the metal walls, and a red light near the ceiling flashed, turning the white, foggy air crimson every other second. Someone had made it to the alarm. Uma bit back a swear that she had learned from these very sailors and drew more water from her left pouch.

East. East was mountainous, and it had its share of rivers. If she could avoid prosecution on the ship just until they hit land, she could run away. She could do it. And this ship changing direction, the princess's ship, would prompt all the other ships to do the same. Even if they could get word to the rest of the fleet that something was amiss, Mal would want her ship to reach the destination first.

Uma turned the steering mechanism until it pointed east, and then she froze it in place with all of the remaining water in her left pouch. (She could feel the change of direction, the brief precarious sway as if it might capsize.) That left half of her right pouch for emergency use. For good measure, she froze the fog that had already condensed on the solid surfaces of the room, coating the controls in frost. Hoping that it would make turning the dials at least a bit inconvenient.

The air was clearing, now; the crew were recovering enough to close in on her. She readied her dagger once more, keeping her eyes in motion to determine the quickest path from this room.

But then one of the soldiers struck a pipe, and struck it again, and on the third strike, the pipe burst, and there was steam.

Uma instinctively backed up; her reflexes had grown quite familiar with sudden blasts of heat and avoidance thereof, nevermind the fact that steam was still her element. But as she was recoiling from the blast, the soldier who had struck the pipe moved his arms through the air, and the blast of steam changed direction.

Momentarily stunned, Uma could only watch with an ever-tightening grip on her weapon as the crew member who had broken the pipe began to waterbend the steam, sending a scalding wave of it across the helmets of three other crew members (the ones closest to intervening) before spinning in a quick circle and freezing all of the room's occupants solid. Everyone, encased in ice, except for Uma and himself.

She glanced at the door, but it was also frozen, so instead she stared at the taller figure, the apparent other waterbender. He was dressed in the standard armor; only his actions betrayed that he was different from the other soldiers. He reached up, and instantly her dagger was to his neck. He froze, then let out a sound similar to laughter, and resumed reaching for his helmet's faceplate. He pulled it away, to reveal a handsome face and eyes as blue as ice. His pupils dilated when they made eye contact. "I see I'm not the only infiltrator. Where are you from?"

His accent was like nothing Uma had heard in the Fire Nation.

"Water Tribe," she said, instead of attacking.

"Southern, I imagine."

Which meant he was from Northern.

Oh, the sneak attack last night. It hadn't failed. Not entirely. How many of them were planted among the soldiers, hidden behind faceplates?

His pale skin was dotted with blood, she suddenly noticed. He was dotted with blood, and he was not injured as far as she could tell. He had done some fighting already today.

"I'm from the Foggy Swamp Tribe originally," he added, much too conversationally. "It's where I came by the accent. But Northern's home, as well. Now, did you have an escape plan, or was this more of a suicide mission?"

"My plan was to get out of here before someone comes to see why we're off course, but it looks like you have another idea."

"Aye." He waved his arms again, and the frozen forms of the ship's crew were pressed against the door, thickening the barrier between them and their enemies. Uma couldn't help staring; his bending style was different from hers. Looser. She realized, bitterly, that she probably waterbent like a firebender. "Y'think we can keep the door frozen long enough to reach the coast?"

"And then what? By that time, there'll be a hundred people waiting for us once we leave this room."

"Fight our way out or die knowing we did our best."

"I'm sure the Northern Water Tribe will thank us for 'doing our best' when they're covered in red banners," Uma grumbled. She pictured Mal, walking her proprietary little walk around the foyer of a palace made of ice, and she decided that she would not die knowing she'd done her best. She would not allow it. "Alright, whatever your name is-"

"Harry."

"Uma. We're going to level this whole fleet, and we're gonna do it from this room. Do you have any backup?"

"I was the only one who survived long enough to get into enemy armor."

That had been her guess, but she still didn't like having it confirmed. Just the two of them, against a whole fleet of ships. "Then we'd better rack up some pretty impressive titles, doing this." She shut her eyes for the second, and remembered that the vessel they were riding (technically steering, now) was surrounded by water, and that she still had half a pouch left, and...

...and that she could bend more than just the obvious water sources. That was an option, too.

"Alright," she said, adding another layer of ice to the door and getting into position to maintain it. She could faintly hear the quick, clanking footsteps of someone running through the metal corridor toward their frozen barrier. "One rule."

"Aye?"

She looked Harry in the eyes. He was taller, but he was stooping low to add more ice to the bottom half of the door. (It was so fascinating to watch someone else waterbend.) "I'm the captain," she told him.

He smirked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm more pleased with this as a concept than as a chapter, but it was sitting in my drafts long enough that it was about to be deleted, so I had to post. Please please comment!


End file.
